29 August 2012

The nonsense of "zero tolerance" in schools

Here is yet another in a seemingly-neverending series of incidents in which schools rigidly enforce "zero tolerance" of sex/drugs/violence/etc related matters. In this case a three-year-old child deaf child who signs with his hands has been told to change his name sign because the hand gesture resembled the pointing of a gun.

Hunter Spanjer says his name with a certain special hand gesture, but
at just three and a half years old, he may have to change it.

"He's deaf, and his name sign, they say, is a violation of their weapons policy," explained Hunter's father, Brian Spanjer.

Grand Island's "Weapons in Schools" Board Policy 8470
forbids "any instrument...that looks like a weapon," But a three
year-old's hands?

"Anybody that I have talked to thinks this is absolutely ridiculous.
This is not threatening in any way," said Hunter's grandmother Janet
Logue.

"It's a symbol. It's an actual sign, a registered sign, through S.E.E.," Brian Spanjer said. S.E.E. stands for Signing Exact English, Hunter's sign
language. Hunter's name gesture is modified with crossed-fingers to
show it is uniquely his own.

Addendum: I just noticed that the boy's name is "Hunter," which may explain the hand sign he was taught to use. Also this comment from the Reddit thread -

...the boy is using SEE instead of ASL. Read through to the related article,
and you'll see that the school district teaches to deaf children with
ASL instead of SEE (the former is much more common). What most likely
happened is that the school is just trying to teach the boy ASL, perhaps
starting with his name, so the parents ran to the news to create the
story that the school is trying to change his name due to their gun
policy, when it's actually because their teachers don't speak SEE.

..and that isn't really the point anyway, is it? In what universe does a three yr-old pointing with his finger represent a threat to anyone? Why should he change signs even if he could just to appease an idiotic bureaucracy?

It was such attitudes and inflexibility that led our family to homeschool in the first place.

This is truly nonsense, and it is totally ineffective anyway. When you consider they supposedly have a "zero tolerance" policy in place for drugs/sex/violence in the government schools, there sure is a LOT of drugs/sex/violence in government schools.

Update, it appears the battle is over: "Grand Island Public Schools is not requiring any current student with a hearing impairment to change his or her sign language name."http://www.1011now.com/home/headlines/School-District-Says-Deaf-Student-Not-Required-to-Change-Name-167784235.html

The addendum still doesn't make this OK. In Deaf culture you usually have a "Sign Name" .. this does not have to be ASL or SEE. It's simply something that identifies who you are. So even if his teachers do not "speak" SEE, it does not mean he needs reinvent a new name sign for himself.

I knew a kid in school named Pornpot. I think he was Vietnames (but I'm sorry if I'm attributing the name to the wrong country of origin). As you'll note, the name has not one but TWO words that violate "zero tolerance." Asking Hunter to sign his name differently is no different than asking Pornpot to go by a different name.

Sometimes I think the state of public education in this country (of which I am currently a consumer) is in fact a gigantic psych experiment to see how much Americans will tolerate. Anybody can cut funding until it pretty much stops working, but it takes a certain intelligence to come up with devious adversities like this.

This is just GREAT! Welcome to the United Soviet States of New Moscow!!! Where two kids merely holding hands is a registerable SEX OFFENSE!!! Where kids get expelled for sharing lunches due to "sanitary violations" and legal "liabilities!!!" Where so-called "transgender kids" can use the girls bathroom, but if he even "looks" at one of the girls therein, he will be arrested and swiftly branded a "pederast" for the rest of his life!!! Where kids are taught "abstinence only" under threat of PROSECUTION!!! Where a friendly game of "tag" can get a kid ARRESTED if the one "tagged" happens to be a girl, only intense PRAYER may be able to save him from "sexual assault" charges!!! Again, welcome to the new United Soviet States of New Moscow!!! Where you only have the right to LISTEN and OBEY!!!!.TIME TO "WAKE UP", PEOPLE.

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